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Pleasure in complicity : a motel, banquet rooms, and retail space in Richmond

University of British Columbia

Ideas of typology are pursued, expanding on popular preconceptions of automobile culture and strip architecture. The elements of type are investigated through an analysis of their physical, social, and economic relationships. An argument of complicity is developed as an alternative to the traditional "eurourbanism" common to many municipal design guidelines. This position seeks to work within the context of the existing city, taking pleasure in its margins, gaps, and adjacencies. Considering the particular physical, cultural and economic conditions of the City of Richmond, this project is framed as the identification of an emerging spatial conception and program/use. The physical space of the city is seen to be shaped most directly by the inclusion of the automobile. The cultural influences of immigration are read on the surfaces of the city and through building programme. Economic realities shape the space of the city as a commodity to be constructed, marketed, and consumed. Through the analysis of the site and contextual conditions, strategies of spatial investigation emerged: the folding of the plane of the city (street) into the space of the building, the horizontal framing of the space of the city (serving as reference and dis-locator to both the automobile and the body as these move through the spaces of the project), and the assemblage of existing types to produce hybrid/mutant types.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-03-09

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/5775

Architecture

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace